Possession
by cashew
Summary: You belong to me. It is something that you should just accept, love…because for as long as you’re alive you shall never escape me." Tom Riddle affected Ginny Weasley in ways no one could have imagined.


Possession

_You belong to me. It is something that you should just accept, love…because for as long as you're alive you shall never escape me._

Ginny Weasley drew a sharp breath as she shot up awake in her bed at the Burrow. The same dream with the exact same ending came every night without fail. His words to her—some of his final words to her had been those. It was right after he had…

Her eyes drifted to their normal place. It had been four years and no one had yet to notice. She was either very, very good, or people paid less attention to her than she thought. She habitually checked her room to make sure Hermione was asleep. It would ruin everything, absolutely everything, if Hermione saw her—it.

Hermione was asleep. Ginny released a breath and rolled up the sleeve of her nightgown. She did not know quite what to make of it. For the first few years she had hated it with all her being. It was a symbol of _him_. He had marked her as his and she didn't have enough tears in her body to cry over how unfair it all was.

But other times…she didn't like it, of course. It's just that it had been there for four years and she had grown rather used to it. Like a scar, if you will. She thought briefly of Harry's scar, they seemed so similar. He could never know, of course. None of them could. They would accuse her of unspeakable things and send her off to Azkaban without farther consideration.

She trailed her finger over it. At least He had left her alone for a few weeks. At the end of her third year she had began to grow used to it. She decided that it would always be there, so she might as well just accept that fact. She figured that she would discover some sort of glamour to cover it when she knew more magic, and no one would ever have to know. But then Harry had disappeared along with Cedric at the end of the Tri-Wizard Tournament and He had come back to power.

When He called out to his Death Eaters, however, He had unknowingly called her as well. The mark burned her skin and it was pure torture. In the chaos of Harry and Cedric's disappearance, though, no one had noticed little Ginny Weasley passed out on the ground, clutching her arm in pain.

Since that first awful time she had learned to deal with it. She found that if she closed her eyes and took deep breaths it would go away after a little while. It was becoming quite the hindrance, however, for He was calling his Death Eaters far more often these days. And when she was in a public setting or sitting with her family it was difficult to explain why she looked as though she was about to be ill.

She had attempted to research it a bit, for Ginny was desperate to know what happened when He called. If it affected her so…then surely he knew about it. And if He knew about her, then that would be disastrous. What if He regained his memory and came for her? He had said she belonged to him, that she would always belong to him. What if that was a promise that He intended on keeping?

All information on it was locked away in the Restricted Section of Hogwarts, though, and she was unable to gain access to any of it. So she was forced to sit and wonder and think about the "what ifs" of her situation.

She wanted to tell someone. She knew that she couldn't, of course, but that didn't stop her from wishing to share the burden. There had been many times when she had almost gone to tell Dumbledore. She even had the sneaking suspicion that he had already guessed what had happened to her.

Dumbledore wouldn't punish her. At least, she didn't think that he would. No, he would probably be very understanding about it all and give her some nice words on how she was very young and it had not been her choice. But he would then encourage her to tell her family. And he would keep insisting that she share it with them until she finally did. That was something that she could not do, though, because she could not bear to see the disappointment and shock in their eyes when she rolled up her sleeve to reveal the Dark Mark branded deep onto her skin.

Ginny sighed and rolled onto her side. With any luck she could get back to sleep for a few hours and not dream of him and his words to her. She doubted it, though, because like he had always told her…she would never be free of him.

000

A/N—Okay, so it's finals week and my sleep tally is like zero. Am I studying at this lovely hour of six in the morning, though? No, I am writing weird stories. But this idea kind of grabbed me, so…let me know what you think. I might leave it as a one-shot, I might do something more with it over Christmas Break, you decide. So leave a review and let me know.


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